Nida Tazeen<\/span> Eric Church tells grads: ‘Keep your six strings in tune’<\/p>\n The country music star used his guitar to help deliver a powerful commencement speech at UNC-Chapel Hill, going through what he called the \u201csix strings of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/media-video><\/div>\n Rockford is gearing up to host a new summer music festival in August.<\/p>\n RockYard Music Fest is set for Aug. 14-15 at Davis Park, according to a community announcement.<\/p>\n The free, two-day event will feature live music, art, food, games, fireworks and family activities. It will coincide with Rockford\u2019s America 250 celebrations and 815 Day festivities.<\/p>\n The festival will be the first major public event at the newly renovated Davis Park, according to the announcement.<\/p>\n The lineup includes tribute bands Trippin\u2019 Billies, which covers Dave Matthews Band songs, and One More Time, a Daft Punk tribute. Local and regional performers will also take the stage.<\/p>\n Other activities include interactive art experiences, throwback competitions, a fireworks show and a drone display.<\/p>\n Attendees can participate in games such as sack races, pie-eating contests and tug-of-war. Rockford trivia and a downtown scavenger hunt are also planned.<\/p>\n Food and drinks will be available, with a ticketed pancake breakfast scheduled for the morning of Aug. 15.<\/p>\n The festival will also feature the unveiling of a new sculpture near Davis Park, expanding public art in the city.<\/p>\n Foresight Bank is the presenting sponsor of the event, which is also supported by the city of Rockford, GoRockford, the America 250 Rockford\/Winnebago County committee and several other organizations.<\/p>\n Volunteers are needed for the festival. Registration information is available at RockYardMusicFest.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n This story was created by reporter Nida Tazeen, <\/em>NTazeen@usatodayco.com<\/em><\/a> , with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at <\/em>cm.usatoday.com\/ethical-conduct<\/em><\/a>.\u200b<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rrstar.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nida Tazeen \u00a0|\u00a0 Rockford Register Star Eric Church tells grads: ‘Keep your six strings in tune’ The country music star used his guitar to help deliver a powerful commencement speech at UNC-Chapel Hill, going through what he called the \u201csix strings of life.\u201d Rockford is gearing up to host a new summer music festival in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2421866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[39915,22220,22005,239661,355904,6297,21741,22783,355903,355907,314544,21739,298114,22764,21800,21738,239343,239347,23759,335051,474581,474582,67134,312878,239344],"class_list":["post-2421864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-affiliate","tag-arts","tag-concerts","tag-concerts-u0026-music-festivals","tag-copywriting","tag-eamotion","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-gpi-460","tag-gpi-460-copywriting-tool","tag-il","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-local-news","tag-music","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-positive","tag-rockford","tag-rockford-freeport","tag-rockford-freeport-sharing","tag-sharing","tag-tool","tag-u0026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Rockfords-RockYard-Music-Fest-brings-free-summer-fun.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2421864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421868,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421864\/revisions\/2421868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2421866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2421864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2421864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2421864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Rockford Register Star<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMain events at RockYard Music Fest<\/h2>\n
RockYard Music Fest is a community effort<\/h2>\n